Building on a key course from the Core Curriculum (Philosophy and the Ethical Life), the Ethics Concentration is centered on the Philosophy Department’s upper-level course on Ethics. From this central point, students continue in a variety of directions, including applied ethics, moral theology, and political philosophy.

Why a Concentration in Ethics?

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates argues that knowledge of the Good is the highest goal of a liberal education. The quest for this knowledge is twofold. On the one hand, it leads us through the world’s mysterious grandeur to its even more mysterious source. On the other, it leads us into the heart of our own lives, where we encounter the question of how to live well.

The Ethics Concentration follows the second, more practical path, asking how it is that human lives, characters, actions, and communities become either good or bad.

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Should we say that even our leading citizens, in whose hands we are placing the whole city, ought to remain in darkness concerning such and so great a matter?”

Plato

At the heart of the concentration is the Philosophy Department’s upper-level course on Ethics, where we seek to discern the principles of right action, and to understand the main theories that philosophers have defended concerning these principles.

From this central point, students can take their studies in a variety of directions. One possibility is to focus on specific areas of human life, in courses such as Business Ethics, Bioethics, and Philosophy of Technology. Theology courses, such as Moral Theology and Catholic Social Teaching, bring the light of faith to bear on the task of living well. In courses such as Aristotle’s Politics and Political Philosophy and the Family, finally, the political dimension of our quest for the good life comes to the fore.

The concentration consists of Ethics and four additional courses, including at least one in Philosophy and one in Theology or Politics. A detailed list of course options may be found in the UD Bulletin.

For more information about the Ethics Concentration, please contact Dr. Lance Simmons, the concentration director.